Friday, September 21, 2007

In my new book, The Etiquette Advantage in Business, I'm noticing the subtleties of the writing that expect women to be less successful than men. For one thing, in the imaginary situations, the imaginary "boss" is always a man. The imaginary "secretary" is always a woman. The book really seems to be about how to use the Etiquette Advantage to succeed--if you're a man.

Every assistant in my office is a woman. The lead Development Officers are mostly men (about 75%). In Communications, all the Directors are men. Every president of this institution has been a man.

It's as if once you know where to look, you can see women being kept from succeeding in business everywhere. And it doesn't help that there are women out there who've been indoctrinated and keep pushing the stereotypes. For example: yesterday I felt ill, and when I was informing an older assistant in my office that I was going home, she asked what was wrong, and then insinuated that maybe I was ill because I was pregnant. After all, now I was married... I was actually really offended by that, since it was none of her business. It makes me wonder if other people are just waiting for me to have a baby and leave work to be a professional mommy.